The room was dark and chilly. A sliver of light from the moon crept in through barred windows, but brought little illumination. Its main effect was to cast sinister shadows over the floor which seemed to compete for eeriness with a blue light that emanated from a corner. The light revealed a boy, sat in front of computer screens, which beamed the blue light into the deserted room. He stretched, looked around and shivered slightly, his own body adding to the collage of shadows being cast across the floor.
Michael took a brief look around the office and sighed. He had been in this office for a year, pretty much to the day, and he still found the nights slightly terrifying, only bearable when he allowed himself to fall into a coding trance, either hacking or scripting his own projects. Tonight, though, he was struggling to concentrate, he didn't want to be hacking, researching or even coding for himself. He didn't even want to be surfing the internet, his other hobby, searching out forums. Although he knew he was unable to post on forums, he would use them as a vicarious life, searching for the most vibrant forums and reading posts, absorbing life experiences through them, making up for his own imprisonment by living the lives of others, albeit in his imagination and on screen.
But not tonight. The reason? On this night, fifteen years ago, his mother had brought him into the world, screaming in protest as though his neonatal self knew exactly how difficult life was going to turn out. Yes, it was his birthday. He had missed his fourteenth, which had occurred only three or four days after his capture, he had been in no fit state to mark it, and had not even realised he had missed it until a few days before. He was struggling with the idea of his birthday this time, he felt as though ten years had passed, not merely one. This was one birthday, but he was going to be celebrating every birthday he had, here, in Raven's Flat, until the day he became expendable or decided he just could not take it any more, and left the world. The thought was depressing him, he rarely let his imprisonment bother him, he forced his feelings deep inside, choosing instead to concentrate on work, and how he had finally found a place where his skills were accepted and he was valued. He could almost feel positive about it sometimes, but not tonight. He was lonely, he was supposed to be celebrating, but there was no-one to celebrate with. Anger flashed into him briefly that nobody had noticed it was his birthday, that they paid so little attention to him. He knew all their birthdays, their STNJ anniversaries, everything, and they knew nothing about him, but assumed they knew everything.
With a start, he focussed back on the office again, hearing the whir of the lift as it rose towards the fifth floor. Who could that be? Maybe Karasuma, who was kind and even vaguely motherly to him sometimes, but who was gradually drinking herself away to escape her craft? Several times he had put her to bed in the Flat after she had drunk herself into oblivion then wandered up to the office to cry. It seemed her only method of release. Even less likely, was Amon. The senior hunter would just disappear on his own, driving fast around the motorways of Japan in his expensive sports car to assuage his own feelings, leaving Michael to pick up the pieces, deleting the traffic violations from the police database and ensuring Amon faced no comeback. He had no more time to ponder, however, as the old fashioned lift doors crashed open and, waving a plastic bag, She stepped out. Kate, with her dancing body and shining hair, gleaming still, even in the weak light of the moon and the harsh light of the monitor.
he gaped at her, speechless
"Someone told me it was your birthday," she greeted him, "somebody also told me you would be fifteen. Well? Is that True?"
"Umm, yes, yes it is" he replied hastily.
"Good then" she smiled, "I bought you something"
She lowered the bag onto the desk next to his, and the plastic slid down to reveal two litres of Coca Cola and a bottle of Vodka. Michael could do nothing but stare incredulously, flicking his gaze from the bottles to her face, then back again.
"Umm, I am only going to be 15"
He said again, nervously, stuttering slightly over the Japanese sounds.
"Yeah, but in Britain, it's a sort of tradition to get hammered on your fifteenth birthday. Well, at least in my part of Britain it is" Kate responded in English, knowing that Michael was bilingual.
He considered "OK, maybe just a little bit, but we have to stay out of the way of the cameras. I'm sure Boss wouldn't like this,"
He had switched into English too, surprised at the effort the words were. He had spoken English to his parents every day at home, in his old life, but had spoken none since arriving at STN.
Kate winked, then he noticed that she was deliberately positioned so the camera could not see what she had brought. Michael cottoned on, and hooked up some small speakers to his CD player. He was not supposed to have speakers, they interfered with the monitoring, but, in his mind, a bit of interference sometimes was a good thing, so he had bodged them together from an old communicator and some spare wire.
With music on, and glasses collected, they were good to go.
"Happy Birthday" said Kate as they clinked glasses together and began to drink.
Michael was expecting it to taste foul, and was pleasantly surprised at the sweet coke flavour overpowering the vodka. He had never drunk alcohol before, only ever smelt whisky on Karasuma's breath, and had imagined all alcohol would all taste as foul as those fumes. Finding that it did not, and that it seemed to have little affect on him, he drank faster, making the novice's mistake of forgetting the after-bite. It did not take long before he had become decidedly tipsy.
"You see," he tried to explain to Kate, slurring his words ever so slightly "they all have their things, their.." he paused, clearly searching his rapidly diminishing vocabulary for the English word, "quirks" he finally arrived at the word, and spoke it laboriously.
"Like Boss, he's there with his cigars and he's really scary. But it's so funny when he's talking to you and not paying attention and the ash falls onto his legs. Imagine if he set fire to himself!"
Michael was laughing slightly hysterically now, and swigging some more drink, reached for a pencil. Placing it between his lips like a cigar, he assumed Zaizen's straight backed posture and began talking, capturing Zaizen's inflections and mannerisms almost perfectly. Kate disliked Zaizen intensely, sensing something under his genial surface which frightened her, and for a moment, watching Michael, the fear came back. Until, he dropped the pencil "cigar," completely in character, he pretended to set himself on fire, and the fear vanished like mist under the sun. His portrayal was hysterical, she was in fits of giggles as he moved on to Doujima, the laziest hunter, again capturing her character, even as much as her slightly strutting walk, always with half a mind on the catwalk. As he finally tried to parody Amon, her laughing and the drink got too much for him, and he broke into giggles too, spraying vodka and coke everywhere as he laughed. The pair laughed for a long time, enough for both to start feeling a pain in their ribs. Finally, Kate calmed enough to say
"You must be really talented, you're so good at that!"
Michael's whole demeanour changed as he heard the question, he stopped laughing so fast it was as though someone had turned a switch off in his mind. He was very, very silent for a time, then replied, in a voice he was clearly forcing himself to keep steady.
"Nah, it gets easy when you're watching the same people all the time."
Kate, realising what she had said, felt an icy, sober chill spread out across her body. She was silent, not knowing what to say, cursing herself for being so thoughtless and for putting her foot in it so badly when she wanted to help the boy be happy.
Michael, looking at Kate also realised what had happened, though the thought took a lot longer for him to process.
"Don't worry about it" he shrugged, "I don't, well, not usually"
"Really! Doesn't it ever bother you?" replied Kate, the alcohol overcoming her inhibitions about the question.
"Course it does. But if I let it, I'd be lost. I don't have a choice, why worry about it. I don't regret the whole hacking thing, so I guess I can't be sorry about it. But"
he choked slightly and gulped at the vodka again.
"I had so many plans. No-one ever believes that, but I really did. I was gonna do stuff, I was gonna go to America and study computing, I was gonna build things, make things. But, it's too late now, eh?"
Kate looked at him, her head cocked to the side.
"Stranger things have happened"
she said, cryptically.
Michael glanced up, drunkenly sniggering slightly
"Oh you have no idea!" he laughed "If I got out of here, there'd be lots of others out to get me, and I don't think they're as nice as SOLOMON"
Now Kate was very confused. She had never heard SOLOMON described as nice before, in twelve years of service all around the world. Her confusion showed on her face, as Michael looked up at her, and he felt the need to explain his statement further.
"How much do you know about hacking? Not the technical bits, but the things people do?"
"I read the papers" she replied. "I guess I've heard of it"
"Do you remember, a couple of years back, there was an incident? To do with the visit from the President of the United States. Something with his wife? I'm sure you heard about it, since you were in America" Michael began, hesitantly
Kate thought for a moment
"Oh yeah! When the First Lady tried to get into Japan and they found she had a criminal record. Yeah, there was a huge mess about it, proper diplomatic incident. Very embarrassing for the Japanese I would have thought! But, I can't remember. What did they think she'd done, again? And when they found out, the guy who did it had a really strange name."
"Prostitution" Michael blurted out, blushing furiously. "Thirty four counts in Washington DC, one in New York and one in Houston. And the name was FatalException" He pronounced the handle in that strange way that left the listener in no doubt that there was an underscore between the two words.
"Blimey!" Kate replied, her surprise causing her to revert to the British English of her childhood. "either you have a very good memory or..." She trailed off, realising from Michael's face that the or was probably the answer
He blushed more deeply
"It was a rubbish name, I know. But the American NCIC, it was just there. I never usually did damage, but just that one time, and a couple of others. I paid NASA a visit a few times, the CIA, the usual suspects. The Americans have never liked people getting into their systems though. I didn't realise until I came here and started looking into it, how close they were to finding me. I had a couple of weeks, maybe a month, no more. At least here, I can still use a computer and this building is a bit bigger than where I'd have ended up if they'd got me." he smirked. "They're still looking for FatalException!" He giggled some more, the effects of the drink still there.
Kate smiled at him. She supposed he was right, that maybe this had been better than the alternatives, but it was not a decision she would have liked to make. She laughed to herself. Who was she trying to kid? She had made a very similar decision, or had the decision made for her, the moment she went through puberty and had acquired witches' powers, "the craft" as it was euphemistically called. When the masked men had taken her from her house in the dead of night, thirteen years old, when her mother had held her one last time and told her that she loved her, but could no longer help her. Then she had understood her choice, be taken, learn to control her power, accept the Craft, or turn on them, release the power and become a Witch. The same choice, maybe.
She glanced towards the window, and noticed with shock that the pale greys of dawn were ghosting across the sky.
"I should go" she said "It's late, you need to sleep and so do I!"
There was no answer from the teenager and she saw he was already asleep in his chair. She gently shook him awake and pointed him in the direction of his own room. He shook himself and rose, shambling off to his real bed as she followed in his wake, outside into the waking dawn.
It was Sunday, supposedly Michael's day of rest when the shrill ringing of his communicator woke him from his deep sleep. Groaning, he reached for the device, getting himself together enough to grunt a greeting down the phone.
"Michael" It was Amon, the team leader, sounding crisp and together as he always did
"Was she with you last night?"
"Who?" Michael blurted out, tired, groggy and confused
"Kate" Amon replied, curtly.
"Why?" replied Michael, lucidity slowly returning to him, along with the memory of the hostility between Kate and Amon
"It's not important right now. But have you done the security camera backups for this week yet? Have you transferred the security logs onto the main server yet?"
Now Michael was very confused "Yes, I did them yesterday"
"Well, I suggest that the records of your visitor last night are corrupted. I believe you have been having problems with the backup systems and the security subsystem server"and with that Amon hung up.
It was worded like a question, but the tone of voice left no doubt that this was a statement. Even in his groggy state, Michael caught on straight away and pushed himself out of bed and up to the office, already visualising the task ahead.
The task was completed and completed well when, the next morning, he was summoned to the office of Zaizen, the Boss. Still slightly fuzzy-headed from sleep deprivation, he stood in front of the desk.
"Michael. It has come to my attention that some of the security logs are missing from the system." He paused
"Yes Boss" Michael answered in English, knowing the Director liked being addressed in the language, then continuing in Japanese. "Batou, the security server, crashed yesterday. Linux just fell over, took lots of things out with it just before the scheduled backup to Kusanagi. I thought I had got it all back" he paused, leaving the unnecessary, unspoken.
Zaizen peered up at him for a time. Michael felt deeply uncomfortable, realising how childish his server names actually sounded if you said them out loud. He loved Ghost in the Shell, and his Administrator account for the system was set up as Project2501PuPPeTMasTer, but he guessed from the Administrator's face that he was not amused by the anime names, or his personification of the servers.
Finally, Zaizen leant back on his chair,
"Tighten up procedures, do not let this occur again" He barked.
Michael nodded, leaving the room as quickly as he could. On re-entering the main office, he tried to look as inconspicuous as possible, but was very aware of Amon's eyes on his back. What was going on? Why all the machinations around the new hunter?
